...for arguing that funding misinformation about climate change should give rise to charges of criminal negligence. That isn't the law at present, and there are a number of reasons why it probably shouldn't be the law, but Professor Torcello's essay raises some interesting points about the harms of misinformation campaigns and whether they are legally cognizable. (If the real target is those who knowingly fund misinformation for private gain, then "negligence" would be the wrong legal standard. The issues here, it seems to me, are closer to those regarding the regulation of "hate speech" and other speech that causes harm.)

Alas, climate change is one of those hot button issues for the far right, which quickly swung into action, starting with misrepresenting Professor Torcello as calling for climate scientists who dispute the consensus to be put in jail. That soon turned into a campaign to get the Rochester Institute of Technology to punish Professor Torcello for his constitutionally protected speech, and speech that falls well within his contractual right to academic freedom. The hysteria and misrepresentations made its way into all the usual far right venues, including Fox News. Professor Torcello made a brief statement in response to the craziness here. RIT made what is, to my mind, a tepid statement about the matter, but one that at least affirms his right to have views of which others disapprove.

I sent the following e-mail to President Destler, cc'ing Provost Haefner and Dean Winebrake; I encourage readers to send the same or similar messages (the e-mail addresses appear below). This kind of organized harassment of faculty by the far right happens too often, and universities should be encouraged to take a stronger stand against this malevolent behavior.

It would be salutary if the University might affirm in public that Professor Torcello’s essay has been misrepresented and that he did not call for those who doubt the scientific consensus about climate change to be imprisoned. What he did do is raise a familiar set of ethical and legal questions about the regulation of speech when that speech is both harmful and false. These kinds of questions are widely discussed in the legal and philosophical literatures, and many democratic societies take a different approach to these issues than does the United States. It would seem to be squarely within the purview of Professor Torcello’s work to address these issues. It is, then, not simply his free speech rights that require defense, but his contractual right to academic freedom, which his critics would like to violate.

There have been too many occasions in recent years when organized campaigns of misinformation by the sorts of fringe groups that thrive on the Internet have been used to target and harass faculty who have engaged in no wrong-doing. This is such a case, and I would urge you to make a strong stand in defense of the faculty member unfairly targeted in this instance.